[PRCo] Re: The Great Dorset Steam Fair

[John Swindler]

Of course there is always a nit-picker
 
Concerning naming of Merchant Navy class - could not be steam ship lines operating out of Southampton AFTER WWII because they were designed late 1930s and delivery started during WWII.
 
http://www.semgonline.com/steam/mn_02.html
 

All were later modified with removal of streamlining and valve gear change.  Only the Brits would consider taking one of these modified engines out of Barry scrapyard and re-engineering it to its as delivered appearance.


One of my favorite designs.  Have a plastic model of 'Battle of Britain" class in OO.
 
Cheers
John
  

 

 

 
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> From: fwschneider at comcast.net
> Subject: [PRCo] The Great Dorset Steam Fair
> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:28:55 -0500
> 
> Some of you might like this ....
> 
> But I have always be intrigued by how the Europeans could become so 
> connected to history and we cannot. A friend of mine who has spent 
> more time than me on both continents felt it was obvious. If you 
> grow up in a house that is 600 years old, history is all around 
> you. You accept history. You live history. But, if, like an 
> American, you grow up in a 1960s house or a 1990s house in a 
> disposable society and fish McDonald's cups out of your lawn, then 
> you simply don't revere history. Perhaps he was correct.
> 
> Our Rough and Tumble Engineers in Kinzers gets thousands of people to 
> its annual reunions and I've enjoyed going there since 1956 to watch 
> the tractors. At the earlier events you could even drive a steam 
> traction engine (steam farm tractor). The link below shows their 
> schedule for 2009 and pictures of the 2008 and 2007 events.
> 
> http://www.roughandtumble.org/
> 
> But a friend of my clued me into a similar but much more monumental 
> show every year in England's West Country that gets 200,000 attendees 
> each year in one week! The Great Dorset Steam Fair. Only the Brits 
> would use a steam farm tractor to haul a lorry trailer loaded with a 
> 95-tonne (the British spelling, if you don't mind) steam locomotive 
> onto the fair grounds. (In one of the tapes that you can look at, 
> the locomotive shows with the Canadian Pacific name on the side. It 
> was part of the Merchant Navy class of locomotives. Each engine was 
> named after a steam ship company that worked out of Southampton after 
> World War II and Canadian Pacific Railway's ships were included.) 
> (The Brit's had a great practice of naming locomotives ... I would 
> have loved to have the name plate off the INDOMITABLE or the 
> INVINCIBLE, either of which I thought would look really nice on my 
> Volkswagen.) But this event is unreal. You may enjoy looking at 
> some of these videos. When you do, please consider that maybe their 
> event is wildly successful also because the first steam crude steam 
> engine was an English invention (Thomas Severy, 1698). The first 
> successful pumping engine by Thomas Newcommen was built in England 
> about 1712. James Watt's improvements come in the middle 18th 
> century ... he was Scottish. We also imported steam railroad 
> technology from Britain. The entire worldwide industrial revolution 
> which Dickens chronicled began in Britain. Maybe they have the 
> right to celebrate.
> 
> These may get a tad tedious but you would never believe so many 
> things could be operated by steam in addition to farm tractors. 
> Steam road rollers. Steam cranes. A steam calliope. Steam 
> powered wheels named after George Ferris, carousels and other 
> amusement rides.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFTSaFwmQQE&feature=related
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jfXoZP8iEA&feature=related
> 
> http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1732686/great_dorset_steam_fair_2008/
> 
> And if you want to be among the 200,000 people showing up in 2009, 
> here is their web site.
> 
> http://www.gdsf.co.uk/
> 
> 
> 
> 

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